Some observations made in travelling through France, Italy, &cin the years MDCCXX, MDCCXXI, and MDCCXXII . king. The Villa de Medici on the Monte Pincio [anciently Collati- Villa deMe-nus] is a precious magazine of fculpture, both for ftatues and dlbaflb-relievos. In the portico of the palace of this villa, juft fronting theentrance, is a curious vafe of white marble, excellentlywell prefervd, as well as finely performd : it reprefents Iphi-genia, going to be facrificd, with Agamemnon, Ulyffes, andother figures encompaffing the vafe. It is to be feen in thejidmiranda. The fame portico is fet r
Some observations made in travelling through France, Italy, &cin the years MDCCXX, MDCCXXI, and MDCCXXII . king. The Villa de Medici on the Monte Pincio [anciently Collati- Villa deMe-nus] is a precious magazine of fculpture, both for ftatues and dlbaflb-relievos. In the portico of the palace of this villa, juft fronting theentrance, is a curious vafe of white marble, excellentlywell prefervd, as well as finely performd : it reprefents Iphi-genia, going to be facrificd, with Agamemnon, Ulyffes, andother figures encompaffing the vafe. It is to be feen in thejidmiranda. The fame portico is fet round with feveral ftatues, much largerthan the life, moft of them in a very great ftyle, to which theygive doubtful names, which I fpare repeating. As you go out of this portico into the garden, are two greatlions in white marble, one on each fide the flairs. One ofthem was made by Flaminius Vacca, of whom mention hasbeen made before: one half of the other (as fays the fameVacca) i. e. one fide of it is antique, for it was a mezzo-relievoonly ; but John Seranus, a fculptor of Fiefoli, having carvd the. 328 ROME. VILLA DE MEDICI. the other part of the marble, made the lion folid and (fays he) by order of the great duke, I made a wholeone like it. He fpeaks very modeftly, for he is much the bet-ter of the two. At a little diftance from the flairs is a fountain, adornedwith three fine ftatues in copper of John de Bologna; one isthe Mercury ftanding on one leg, and pointing upwards, ofwhich are feveral copies in England. The fecond is a Mars. The third they there call Saturn, going to eat one of hischildren ; but it is more likely to be a Silenus, and young Bac-chus : the vine branches that are curioufly twifted about thetrunk of a tree, which the great figure refts againft, denote it:and there is a marble ftatue at the Villa Borghefe, there con-ftantly called a Silenus, which the figures in this fo much re-ferable, that I am inclined to think they are caft from it
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